


there is something under the floorboards

by butforthegrace



Category: Attack the Block (2011)
Genre: F/M, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-24
Updated: 2011-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-28 00:46:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/301897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butforthegrace/pseuds/butforthegrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Every time Sam sees the tarp, something goes wrong inside her, something that she’s not sure can ever go right.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	there is something under the floorboards

Sam is there when Moses gets released, two weeks after he was taken away by the police.  She promised to take him in, to bring him to her ruined flat and look after him (no one can find his uncle).

And she does, even though Moses doesn’t say a word to her on their way back to the Block, doesn’t say a word as she unlocks the door.  There’s a tarp up where the alien punched a hole through the wall, and neither of them comments on it; she barely notices it anymore.

“You can sleep on the couch.”  It’s the first thing she says to him, as she’s carrying a stack of pillows and blankets out of her bedroom.  He’s leaning against the wall, a hood shadowing his face.  She knows the scars are there.  She saw them in the harsh lights of the prison hallway.

He says nothing as she puts the pillows and blankets down on the couch.  He says nothing when she makes dinner, nothing when she offers him a plate of food.  He moves, sure—to the couch, to the little kitchen table.  But there are no words, not for her.

“Well, good night,” she tells him, paused in her bedroom doorway.  She glances over her shoulder at the silent boy on the couch, the fifteen-year-old who acts so much older than he is, and for the first time he looks fifteen.  Younger, even.

Sam leaves the door open that night.  She hopes he knows she’s there.

 

She wakes up just after dawn; she hasn’t been good at sleeping the last two weeks.  When she pokes her head into the living room, Moses is still there, stretched across the couch, and she lets out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

It’s the most peaceful she’s ever seen him—though to be fair she’s mostly seen him in the midst of an alien invasion—and she doesn’t realize that she’s been standing there smiling faintly until he stirs and she panics.  She retreats back into her room, shuts the door softly, and hopes he hasn’t woken up just yet.

And he hasn’t—it isn’t until noon that he wakes up, somehow disturbed by the soft creeping of Sam’s bare feet around the kitchen.  She doesn’t notice until the couch creaks, and she turns to see him sitting up, blinking, stretching out his arms.

“Good morning,” she says, more cheerily than she feels.  “Do you want something to eat?”

He just looks at her, as if she’s speaking total nonsense, and she retreats a little, dropping the façade of cheer.  “Well.  I’m making coffee, and there’s rashers in the fridge, and I’ve got some bread—“ She gestures vaguely at a cabinet.  “Help yourself, I suppose.”

It’s not until she’s almost inside her bedroom again that she hears them: the first words Moses has said to her since she picked him up.  They’re low, quiet; she might not have heard them except that the flat is so small and quiet itself.

“Thank you, Sam,” he says, and she doesn’t turn around because she doesn’t want him to see the way she’s smiling.

“Sure,” she says, and shuts the door.

 

They fall into a routine after that.  They don’t talk much, because there’s nothing to say.  Sometimes Pest comes by, or Biggz, and the boys sit around talking while Sam checks up on Pest’s leg (she keeps telling him he should go to hospital, but he’s too proud; they’re all too proud).

They’re supposed to be happy, all of them; they fought off aliens, Moses and Pest got out of prison, the four of them are still alive.  Sam smiles tightly when she looks at her ring, and pretends it never left her finger.

But Jerome and Dennis are dead, and that’s not something they can forget.  Every time Sam sees the tarp, something goes wrong inside her, something that she’s not sure can ever go right.

 

For New Year’s Eve, she buys champagne.

She and Moses sit on the couch and don’t talk, just watch the clock and drink.  They finish the whole bottle between them, and finally, just after one o’clock, Sam says, “I don’t think it was supposed to be like this.”

Moses looks at her.  “Like what?”

“We’re not supposed to be—I don’t know.  Pretending to fucking be happy, I guess.”

“Pretending?”

“What—you’re not going to tell me you’re actually happy? Your friends are dead, your flat was ruined, no one believes that there were really fucking _aliens_ at the Block…” She shakes her head and looks at the empty bottle, wishing there was more alcohol left.  “This isn’t right.”

“We’re alive, though.”

“So?”

“So, that’s something to be happy about, innit?”

She looks up from the bottle, and Moses is still looking at her, and maybe it’s the champagne and maybe it’s something more real than that but even though she suspects that she’ll regret it later, she reaches up to touch his scars with delicate fingers.

“You’ll never forget, will you,” she whispers.

“I don’t want to,” he says, and puts his hand over hers.

 

He kisses her first.  It’s not absolution, but it’s close enough.

 

Sam still can’t hold onto happiness, but she learns how to pretend.


End file.
